36 years later, in front of the gate of the Royal Palace, in a public square, a dozen small children were playing. His parents, mostly in their twenties, had not yet been born when the horrifying event of the Khmer Rouge occurred. They seemed as joyful and innocent as their children. Time has healed, life has moved on.
Phnom Penh became the capital of the Khmer kingdom in the 15th century, replacing the much lamented Angkor. Legend has it that an old woman named Penh found four Buddha images that had rested on the bank of the Tongle River. A city grew up around the hill where she housed them for worship and became known as Phnom Penh (Penh Hill).
For centuries, Phnom Penh struggled to survive repeated attacks by its two powerful neighbors, the Vietnamese and the Thai, until the arrival of the French in 1863, who made Cambodia a protectorate and effectively protected it from invasions. foreigners until his departure in 1953. .
The French gave the city the layout we know today. Thus, Phnom Penh has a specific colonial feel: grand boulevards lined with ancient trees, elegant villas surrounded by lush gardens; however, a new face of the capital seems to have been formed as some modern structures are being built, a milestone of modernity for which the country is striving.
In fact, the capital seems to enjoy a distinctly higher standard of living than the rest of the country: big pickup trucks abound, the safe deposit box business is a huge success as people find ways to store their newfound wealth, and International schools are full of children from local families. wealthy families Of course, that image does not represent the majority of the inhabitants of Phnom Penh. The working class is certainly still very concerned with its daily profits. However, an impression of tranquility and abundance is very characteristic of the city today.
I decided to walk to the river bank in front of the Royal Palace. It is a place where you can meet Cambodians from all walks of life: monks, intellectuals, businessmen, housewives, food vendors and beggars, drawn by the fresh air and the healing effect of the river. In one corner was a small Buddhist shrine, where devotees offered candles and lotus flowers placed in a fresh coconut. I watched a middle-aged couple ceremoniously shaving their young son’s head. The latter was seated in a chair, his eyes closed and his hands clasped in a gesture of reverence. Apparently, he was preparing to enter monkshood to fulfill his duty as a man and son, bringing merit to his family, a tradition shared in all Theravada countries such as Thailand, Laos and Burma.
Despite all of Phnom Penh’s interesting sightseeing tours, its quiet markets, bars, restaurants and the seemingly carefree laughter of its youth, I still cannot forget the tragic events that killed a quarter of the population of this country less than half a century. I went into a bike shop to rent a bike and go for a ride. The store manager, a young woman in her early twenties, did not know how to get to my destination. She had never been to the Choeung Ek death camp, a museum of her country’s past genocide just 13 km away, it’s probably a part of history she’d rather not know about.
The Choeung Ek extermination camp was surrounded by serene rice fields and villages. At first glance, the elegant memorial tower situated in the center of the site did not look horrible at all, until I saw the pyramid of skulls with thousands of victims who had been killed on this site during the Khmer Rouge regime. My audio guide led me through all the mass grave points and then back to the memorial tower. There were no words to describe the feeling resulting from touring the site. The whole place was a terrifying display of the darker side of the human psyche, where circumstances turned people into killing machines, unable to connect with the most basic human consciousness: the value of life.
“The choice of the Garuda divine bird and the Naga divine serpent on the roof of the memorial tower is symbolically very significant,” the tour guide said. “In mythology, they are eternal enemies. Therefore, when used together as ornaments, they represent a strong desire for reconciliation and peace.”
In fact, this spirit of reconciliation had been an attitude adopted by Cambodians in order to move on, keep smiling and rebuild their country. This is how Phnom Penh has managed to put traumatized memories in museums and books, looking to the future and living life to the fullest now.
